Please don't let this thread degenerate, it's intelligent so far, just
make your points, be polite, etc etc. Don't rehash old ground...
Re: what ninjeff said... Record shopping is cool, and will keep plenty of
people buying records. But, if you live anywhere without good record
shops, your alternatives are basically online ordering, buying whatever
CDs your local store happens to get in, or getting MP3s. The first option
loses the appeal of physicality. if you're not a dj, might as well get an
MP3 if you're not an audiophile. the second option is unappealing in its
inflexibility if you live an area with crappy stores, or if you realize
that the CD just isn't very satisfying. it's just another imperfect
digital technology, eminently disposable, replaced by the next thing,
like MP3s. Records
are the last analog sound technology of any note, and as such they aren't
made obsolete by MP3s in the same way CDs are. Getting MP3s is a pain, but
i know that at school I have a direct connection that'll get me music in a
few minutes. That's nice and convenient, and might overpower the urge
to go shopping if i could actually find decent MP3s online.
Beyond all of that, I think Walter Benjamin is pertinent right
now. In "Art in the Age of mechanical reproduction," he talked about nthe
process whereby art (and by extension, music), becomes less about the
object, and more about the product. a very select group of people used to
go to classical
concerts in tuxes, applauded at all the right moments, and were
generally forced to fetishize many things extraneous to the music. With
mechanical reproduction, benjamin argues, art is given to the masses free
of the pretense and pomp of high culture. You go to a noisy show in
dirty
clothes, listen to a CD in your own home on the cheap. Now, with digital
reproduction, the object is further discarded, because it becomes
irrelevant. Yeah, the physical presence of a record is nice, but unless
you're a DJ, it's in many ways extraneous to the music itself. (And, to
all you small labels who try to create fetish object limited editions,
Benjamin would say you're living in the past.) Of course,
blah blah blah limited editions are nice,a;bum art is nice, fetishes are
nice, makes people
happy, etc, we've been over it already. But to resist MP3s means that you
should acknowledge how much you're fetishizing technology, not music.
This all only becomes relevant once MP3 technology becomes more
accessible, etc. You know the drill and all the counter-arguments that
can be made. Enough outta me
Sam